BILL NUMBER: S7755

SPONSOR: SAVINO
 
TITLE OF BILL:  An act to amend the public health law, in relation to
the definition of a serious condition regarding the medical use of mari-
huana

 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:

To remove the statutory list of eligible conditions for medical marihua-
na, and allow medical marijuana to be certified and used for a severe
debilitating or life-threatening condition if, in the practitioner's
professional opinion and review of past treatments, the patient is like-
ly to receive therapeutic or palliative benefit from it.

 
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:

Section 1:

Amends the definition of "serious condition" in subdivision 7 of PHL §
3360 to include any severe debilitating or life-threatening condition,
              

or symptom or complication of the condition or its treatment, for which,
in the practitioner's professional opinion and review of past treat-
ments, the patient is likely to receive therapeutic or palliative bene-
fit from primary or adjunctive treatment with medical use of medical
marihuana.

Section 2: Effective date: immediate.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

There is no pharmaceutical product other than medical marijuana for
which the State restricts its use to a limited list of medical condi-
tions. The State has, in all other cases, deferred to medical profes-
sionals to decide which prescriptions are appropriate in which cases for
which conditions, consistent with medical training and expertise.

Administrative actions expanding the existing conditions list, as
authorized by statute, have benefited patients. But practitioners
continue to have a lack of clarity about which conditions are actually
covered. If they look in Public Health Law, they would find that "severe
or chronic pain" is covered when associated with a limited list of
certain other conditions; if they look in regulation, that "any severe
debilitating pain that...degrades health and functional capability" is
covered but only "where the patient has contraindications, has experi-
enced intolerable side effects, or has experienced failure of one or
more previously tried therapeutic options; and where there is documented
medical evidence of such pain having lasted three months or more beyond
onset, or the practitioner reasonably anticipates such pain to last
three months or more beyond onset."

As medicine advances, it should not take acts of the Legislature or the
Department to add or remove conditions. Practitioners are already
required to take a 4-hour marihuana-specific course in order to recom-
mend it, a requirement that does not apply to any prescription medica-
tion - including schedule II controlled substances. Further restricting
providers' ability to exercise professional judgment through a
restricted conditions list is impractical, confusing to practitioners,
and limits appropriate patient access.
 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

New bill.

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
Immediately.